Romancing The Rock

‘“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say: ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’

“This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.”‘ [Acts 7:30-36 NIV]

Something stood out to me as I read this passage recently. Earlier in the story, when Moses was still living in Egypt, he had gone down to see his people and seen a man being mistreated by an Egyptian. Taking matters into his own hands, he killed the Egyptian. The Bible says that ‘Moses thought that his own people would realise that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.’ [vs 25]

It occurred to me that Moses already had it in his heart to see the Israelis delivered from slavery. He already had the vision and the desire to see it happen and believed he was the man for the job, BUT the big problem here is that he tried to do it in his own strength, not with God’s favour and timing.

God places the desires in our hearts (see Psalm 37:4) and he brings them to pass, but it is all contingent on one thing: that we live a life committed to Him and trusting in Him. At the point where Moses killed the Egyptian, he had never even encountered God, let alone have a relationship with Him.

It wasn’t until after some time in the desert, a change of heart attitude and a revelation of who God is, that Moses was ready to be sent back to Egypt to complete that which was in his heart for so many years.

So, my encouragement for you today is, wait on God and He will bring those dreams and visions to pass in His perfect time. Listen to Him and lean on Him and He will guide you into fulfillment of those desires.